Never Fade Away

Jim Marshall passed away on Tuesday night in his sleep in a New York hotel.  He was THE rock and roll photographer, but don't take my word for it.  If you don't know his work, you have probably seen it anyway.  His images are legendary.  He was larger than life.  When I met him in 1997, it was a special time.  His images had already been a big part of my life as a photographer and a music fan.  But meeting him somehow fused it all together for me, gave me an insight into what it was like to be there to photograph Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Mick Jagger, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash and so many others.  Jim was open and friendly and very generous with his time and his life stories.  He signed his first book, Not Fade Away, for me with these words, "To Tony Barbera, A New Friend."

In the years after our first meeting, I saw Jim a number of times.  We had dinner, hung out at an auction of rock and roll photos (many of them his), chatted at gallery openings, and shared a scotch or two in the middle of the California desert.  At one point, finally ready to invest in a couple of his images, I called him in San Francisco to tell him.  I said, "Jim, I think I'm finally ready to buy a couple of your photos."  Without missing a beat, he said, "Well, then fucking buy 'em then."  A pause, and then great laughter.  I won't soon forget that conversation.  I told him I wanted the shot of a smiling Bob Dylan at a press conference, and the shot of a pensive John Lennon backstage before the Candlestick Park concert, the last live concert the Beatles ever played.  Jim told me the stories behind those two photos and his memories of taking the pictures, and before the conversation was done he told me a few more stories.  And Jim had so many stories to tell.  Though he is now silent, his images carry on his legacy, tell his stories, and rightly so.

As he said in the foreword to his book, Not Fade Away:
"Let the music move you, whether to a frenzy or a peaceful place.  Let it be what you want to hear - not what others say is popular.  Let the photograph be one you remember - not for its technique but for its soul.  Let it become a part of your life - a part of your past to help shape your future.  But most of all, let the music and the photograph be something you love and will always enjoy."

So many people knew him as I did, and many of them much more intimately than I did.  But the time I spent with Jim will always hold a place dear in my heart.  He was a fine man, honest and direct (what some may call gruff or disagreeable), a great artist, and a good friend who always greeted me with a hug and a kind word, whether I saw him only once a year or once every other.

The photograph attached here I took in Amboy in '02.  It is how I will remember him, Leica in hand, doing what he did best.  Rest in Peace, Jim.